OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?

The Fragile Ears Of Men

A defense of Joanna Newsom, at least that's how it seems to have been intended.

i didn't read past the lede

someone should invent an app that writes these thinkpieces without human intervention, it wouldn't be very hard to do. in fact i'm not entirely sure that's not how this piece was generated.

i am completely in the favor of the thesis of that piece but it relies on a lot of contorted and bad faith readings of criticism (for instance when she assumes that when a male critic compares newsom favorably to other male artists, he must like those artists better than her?)

honestly everyone who writes thinkpieces like that, reads them, or responds to them should probably be tied to a polaris missile and sent into the heart of the sun (myself included)

and Mike Powell loves Joanna Newsom

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/699643/thumbs/r-SUPERMAN-IV-large570.jpg?4

Newsom, who is known for her acrobatic singing voice, operatic albums, and magisterial lyricism

what?

It was eminent that she was a genius and I promptly bought all her records and listened to them for two years straight.

what i found more striking was that i think i've read five profiles of newsom from this album cycle, all of them by men, and all of them identical (1. something about unicorns 2. her songs are complicated 3. she was in inherent vice)

as usual a piece critical of music critics by a non-music writer tends to reveal the author as a bad music writer

It would seem reasonable that Newsom would be considered among the greatest living musicians.

There's maybe like 30% insight in there and 70% butthurt that not everyone likes my favorite singer who is obviously a genius.

meant evident, said eminent, yes?

i think that piece is v funny and good except the last graf

you must not value your time highly

i post here, don't I?

but yeah, lol, at the bad men eating popcorn so loud she couldn't enjoy an advertisement

it's kinda hard for me to criticize a piece from a female writer discussing the ways in which male writers talk about female artists, i mean i can't defend some of the ways male critics write abt newsom or a lot of other female musicians who have been dismissed or condescended to even in mere descriptions.

i didn't find the piece too terrible i guess idk. i think it goes beyond being annoyed that people don't like newsom.

yeah, I mean she is right that the clichéd female-artist-to-female-artist comparisons border on dismissive/insulting, for example. But her piece was also kind of just bad, much like Joanna Newsom's "Have One On Me".

xpost, yeah, i mean the piece is basically just pwning music writers, which I'm always 100% in favor of

remember devendra banhart?

xpost, yeah, i mean the piece is basically just pwning music writers, which I'm always 100% in favor of

― bricc baby hitlo (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, October 27, 2015 4:21 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you'd prefer "music journalists"?

srsly barf a million times @ endless thinkpieces parsing the critical reaction to album x

someone needs a nap

xpost, yeah, i mean the piece is basically just pwning music writers, which I'm always 100% in favor of

i mean i am too but this one uses really shitty reasoning to get there

I mean, also, it's hilarious that she's like going in on Taylor Swift and Beyonce being the only model for feminist musician that male writers get behind when A) Just 10 years ago, you would have been more likely to see critical acclaim for Joanna Newsom than Ciara and B) There was like 9 bazillion Carrie Brownstein interviews posted this week

lol at anybody who reads past this:

The mainstream press has remained leery of the multitalented harpist Joanna Newsom since her much-touted 2004 debut, despite consistent favorable reviews.

in what outlet are these reviews printed? in the...press, you say? I see, I see

lol

The mainstream press has remained leery of the multitalented harpist Joanna Newsom in the many gushing reviews of literally everything she has released

in outlets are they touted?

Mainstream Press is a great hip-hop group from Oakland, though.

Entire pieces have been written about the voices of Bob Dylan and Tom Waits, so American and vital and wise in their manly scratchiness, like unshaved bristle and whiskey and dirt. Man voice make music good.

i agree with her that sexism is a factor in the way music is reviewed.

but that seems sorta self evident and presenting it here as if it were a revelation is a tetch self serving in preservation of newsom as the greatest voice of her generation, why because i like her

yeah this sucked as an experience of reading prose and is tendentious and bad as a description of newsom's appeal but . . . .

it's on point that many male journalists infantilize and condescend to women in pop/rock who are scarily talented

(see the critical history of kate bush, bjork for starters there)

I'm guessing this probably doesn't happen to, say, martha argerich or someone on that level

pretty much all music "opinion" writing these days is presenting totally obvious, self-evident things as "revelations" because social justice

and that is bad and awful

the only way to enact real change is to eat up real estate with constant, condescending, redundant explanations of things that everyone already knows

like how many articles can I read and share on social media in one day that reinforce the worldview of my peers and i

I wouldn't want the outcome to be "if you don't love newsom as much as I do, then you're a sexist piece of shit"

but you're saying maybe that is the arm-twisting politics-as-ethics logic here?

that's a bummer, if it's true

I haven't read the piece and only skim-read the conversation here but I already feel better about having been on-record as someone more than willing to make fun of both Bob Dylan and Joanna Newsom

Man voice make ILM good.

blown display name opp

Man troll gas beany jim-jam

this is one of my favorite voices ever. starts at 3:22 right after the witch is hanged.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDxMnjRZT7M

where are you, Trella Hart! i could listen to that song all day long.

blaaack lucky hammerhead...

Mark Of The Witch written by two women, fyi...

"now i wonder...if anybody'd miss me if i died..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqq8vMt2I9E

not the same as her mark of the witch jam, but pretty cool and depressing.